Tata Steel Tournament: Impressions from Wijk aan Zee

1/18/2013 – Our Spanish language news editor Nadja Wittmann, who lives in Den Haag, Holland, took the train to Wijk aan Zee – in spite of ten inches of snow. Alina L'Ami is in Wijk for the entire event, assisting her husband Erwin. Both have sent us pictorial impressions. In addition we bring you some tactical highlights from the B and C section, while Andrew Martin attempts to explain why Carlsen wins.

75. Tata Steel Chess Tournament

January 2013

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This event is taking place from January 12-27. The venue is as usual the traditional
De Moriaan Center in the Dutch sea resort of Wijk aan Zee,. The tournament has
taken place since 1938 and was known as the Corus Chess Tournament. The Indian
company Tata Steel bought Corus (for US $7.6 billion) in 2006 and the chess
event way renamed accordingly. The tournament has three Grandmaster Groups,
which have 14 players and are held as full round robins (each competitor plays
against every other). The rate of play for all three groups is 100 minutes for
40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and finally 15 minutes for the rest of
the game, with a 30 seconds/move increment starting with the first move of the
game.

Impressions from Wijk

This was the somewhat daunting situation in Den Haag as Nadja Wittmann prepared
to mount her bike for the trip to the station (the Dutch are bicycle people)

The station thankfully clear of ice and snow

But the bus on the final stretch has to brave the weather

At last Nadja arrives at her destination

Scroll to the right for a full panoramic view of Wijk aan Zee in the winter
– on the left is Hotel Zeeduin

The top boards of the Open, with the three main GM groups in the background

Scroll to the right for a full view of GM groups in action (our camera-based
panorama software has cut
off part of an ambulatory player in order to display the face of a player, Nakamura,
behind him)

You can see the moves of the top games on giant flatscreen panels

World Champion Vishy Anand during his round four game against Levon Aronian

Yes, there's a player – or maybe two – that Jan Timman can look
up to...

On the beach there are still some kite sailors surfing in the permanently stiff
breeze

Industry, and especiall the steel mill, dominate the landscape in Wijk

As dusk descends one is treated to a legendary sunset on the Atlantic coast

The colours become more intense as the evening (actually: late afternoon) progresses

... and end in a truly spectacular display that has made Wijk aan Zee famous

Our photographers Nadja Wittmann and Alina L'Ami on duty in Wijk

Results of the B and C groups

We have somewhat neglected the two lower groups in our reports of the Tata
Steel Chess Tournament, even though they are full of GMs and interesting young
talents. Here are the current standings after the first five rounds.

In the B Group 16-year-old Richárd Rapport is dominating, with 4.5/5
points and a 3014 performance. Before anyone starts to voice suspicion we would
like to remind you that Richárd has a FIDE rating of 2621, and that we
already drew attention to this extraordinary talent three years ago. It
does not come as a total surprise to us that he is doing so well in Wijk.

Even Magnus and Co. are interested in the games of the B Section

Standings in the C Group

Here are some entertaining tactical highlights from the games of the B and
C groups. Click on the diagram in the notation to jump to the critical position.
Note that you can download the PGN file our Javascript player is showing and
load it with Fritz (or Rybka, or Houdini) and analyse the positions marked as
diagrams. It is quite a lot of fun, really, and we urge you to try it.

Andrew Martin: Why Carlsen wins

Magnus Carlsen brings to the table an intimidation factor – many players
seem to be lost, psychologically, before they even sit down against him. So
why does he win and how does he win? In this video Andrew Martin addresses this
intriguing question.

Commentary schedule

There is full broadcast of all games on the official site and on the Playchess
server, which will provide live audio commentary of the most interesting
games (free for Premium members) starting at 15:00h for each round, 14:00h for
the final round. Commentary begins at approx. 3 p.m. and lasts 2 to 2½
hours, with breaks in between. A round-up show is provided at 8 PM server time.
Commentary is available, by the following experts:

See also

9/26/2017 – The final classical game. The finals has been relatively sedate with three draws until now. But it could all end today with one decisive game. Ding Liren has the black pieces today. It's going to be an exciting game. Games kick off at 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EST) with live commentary from Tbilisi by GMs Evgeny Miroshnichenko and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and live updates by our reporters Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal.

See also

7/5/2017 – This is neither prank nor clever wording: Garry Kasparov will be playing in the official St. Louis leg of the Grand Chess Tour from August 14-19, 2017. Please note that this is the Rapid and Blitz competition, just as the ones held in Paris and Levuen these last weeks, and not the classical events. However, this is not an exhibition event, and will determine the official Grand Chess Tour rankings as well as FIDE ratings of the players. Here is the press release.

Video

Tired of spending hours and hours on the boring theory of your favourite opening? Then here is your solution, play an Anti-Sicilian with 3.Bb5 against 2...d6 or 2...Nc6, and 3.d3 against 2...e6. In 60 minutes you will get a crash course in how to avoid mainstream theory and in understanding the ideas of this Anti-Sicilian setup. After these 60 minutes you should be able to survive the Sicilian for a long time, without being bothered by new developments found by engine x supported by an x-core machine. Now that it finally comes down to understanding, let's play chess!